the prehistoric
ancestors whom he had excogitated? Where are the great Bishops from
Andrewes and Cosin onwards, and the lesser Theologians who wrangled, and
the Latitudinarians who meditated, and the historians with Whitelocke at
their head, and the countless writers of countless classes of books who
multiplied steadily as time went on? It can only be answered that they are
not, and that almost in the nature of things they cannot be here. It is not
that they are not intrinsically interesting; it is not merely that, being
less intrinsically interesting than some of their forerunners or
contemporaries, they must give way when room is limited. It is that even if
their individual performance were better than that of earlier men, even if
there were room and verge enough for them, they would less concern the
literary historian. For to him in all cases the later examples of a style
are less important than the earlier, merely because they are late, because
they have had forerunners whom, consciously or unconsciously, they have
(except in the case of a great genius here and there) imitated, and because
as a necessary consequence they fall into the _numerus_--into the gross as
they would themselves have said--who must be represented only by choice
examples and not enumerated or criticised in detail.

CONCLUSION

A conclusion, like a preface, is perhaps to some extent an old-fashioned
thing; and it is sometimes held that a writer does better not to sum up at
all, but to leave the facts which he has accumulated to make their own way
into the intelligence of his readers. I am not able to accept this view of
the matter. In dealing with such a subject as that which has been handled
in the foregoing pages, it is at least as necessary that the writer should
have something of _ensemble_ in his mind as that he should look carefully
into facts and dates and names. And he can give no such satisfactory
evidence of his having possessed this _ensemble_, as a short summary of
what, in his idea, the whole period looks like when taken at a bird's-eye
view. For he has (or ought to have) given the details already; and his
summary, without in the least compelling readers to accept it, must give
them at least some means of judging whether he has been wandering over a
plain trackless to him, or has been pursuing with confidence a well-planned
and well-laid road.

At the time at which our period begins (and which, though psychological
epochs